Dear Laurie, Bo and all, I add some parts of my review.  Mnemonics are tools for recall, not for comprehension.  Students already understand the material and can apply their knowledge. But mnemonics are helpful for RECALL to connect 'the new, unfamiliar information that must be learned and remembered with information that is already known by the learner, with the use of visual and auditory cues. 

But I do agree that mnemonics are the best memory tools for the one who created them.

Article Musical Mnemonics to Facilitate Learning of Transcription of RNA

I am not sure which context you are referring to when you question why students are not taught mnemonics. I agree that they are a very useful way of learning factual information. In the context where I work (the Maldives), mnemonics are often taught to school students, sometimes often included in the textbooks too. In higher education contexts, study skills training given to first year students will often encourage students to use these techniques and create their own mnemonics. I do believe that if you make your own mnemonics, it is even more helpful in prolonging memory.

I agree with Naashia Mohamed. Creating your own mnemonics is probably more effective than learning loads of mnemonics in order to learn loads of information. I see the problem just in the number of mnemonics. There is a countless number of mnemonics which often apply only to a special field of subject, i.e. mathematics, vocabulary, etc. But there are only a few principle learning strategies, which can be applied to various fields. Of these are repetition, elaboration and associations with existing knowledge structures, active learning, emotional and motivational commitment, pauses between periods of learning and sleep. I would regard personal mnemonics such as your musical example as a kind of elaboration, so it should help consolidating your knowledge.

Thanks @Bo for sharing this: 'It is my understanding and experience that mnemonics can increase the amount of information learned and prolong the period in which it can be recalled. I think musical mnemonics is a great example since one can easily realize the vast amount of lyrics from regular songs that one can recall. Imagine if these songs were enconded with meaningful information...'

I teach Biology and I use musical mnemonics.  Have a look at one of my papers.  In life sciences, instructors as well as students create mnemonics.  I created mnemonics when I was studying Biochemistry in varsity.  I observed that students of life sciences who used mnemonics obtained better grades.  I also attach a video recording.

Article Musical Mnemonics to Facilitate Learning of Transcription of RNA

Data Transcription of RNA (video recording)

In general, I would also think that many teachers at various levels simply don't know about mnemonics and how to use them appropriately for a given topic or subject. Mnemonics as a topic isn't something that people/teachers/professors normally learn about.

Intertextulity concept is very usefull to analize And find The sense of a math text.

Recent versions of the Hilgard Intro to Psychology have a section on how to learn the material based on cognitive science. It is easier to embed this in a psych course sense mnemonics is part of the course content.

Miranda. Very interesting. I will look in to the details of your articles as soon as I have time.

Eugenio. So far I've only found evidence (old) that musical mnemonics does not help the understanding-process instead makes it harder. If you have any evidence for your claim I'd be glad to read it.

Daniel. Thats interesting. I've been trying to cooperate with a professor that has a course in Neuroscience at KTH/KI. They are interested but seem too be to busy to do keep it up. Perhaps this is related to the fact that a lot of schools cares more about examining maximum nr of students at maximum speed (time/money) rather than increasing learning. So they dont prioritize increasing the recall time and the amount of information learned as long as its enough.

On song?

http://teachingthroughsong.blogspot.com/

Bo .Could you please read -Intertextuality And sense production... - in Educatinal Studyes in Mathematics 06/2014.

Two thoughts... first mnemonics are best remembered when created by the students. Second, in this Google-age in which we are living, why are students learning facts that can be memorized using mnemonics and not being asked to apply that very same information in meaningful ways. The real thinking is in application, not memorization.

Intertextuality can be triggred expontaneously,that it's forcé.

I use mnemonics extensively in all my classes and training of teachers because I have discovered that they improve students’ academic performance for all kinds of students. I have hundreds of mnemonics at my disposal. The approach is based on how the brain functions in the teaching and learning process and how the brain processes mnemonics, which resulted in more information being deposited in the long-term, creating greater retention by students. For example, in order to improve memory, I usually share the PURRR and PAT mnemonics with students.

Example One

Practice the knowledge or skill taught

Use the knowledge or skill

Repeat use of the knowledge or skill

Review the knowledge or skill frequently

Reflection on the knowledge and skills

Example Two

To get students to think in visual images and process the information at a faster rate, I use and share the following PAT mnemonic

Perceive

Analyze

Think in visual images

For Teachers

In order for teachers to remember the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, I use the following mnemonic in my training of teachers:

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

Odors , music , etc, can remaind past events .

Dear Laurie, Bo and all, I add some parts of my review.  Mnemonics are tools for recall, not for comprehension.  Students already understand the material and can apply their knowledge. But mnemonics are helpful for RECALL to connect 'the new, unfamiliar information that must be learned and remembered with information that is already known by the learner, with the use of visual and auditory cues. 

But I do agree that mnemonics are the best memory tools for the one who created them.

Article Musical Mnemonics to Facilitate Learning of Transcription of RNA

I feel that they certainly have a place in the classroom, but since these are skills and not topic-heavy, they tend to be given less value. The payoff is great, however, and I always found that the time I spent teaching these techniques was well worth it.

I'd have to agree that mnemonics can aid in recall but not necessarily in deeper understanding.  A student can create a mnemonic for everything he needs to study and still not understand any of the topics in question well enough to write about them in detail or to explain them to others.

For example, in an anatomy and physiology class, a professor could create a mnemonic for remembering all of the major muscle structures in the human body, but a student who merely memorized the mnemonic would not be able to draw a labeled diagram of all of the muscles.  The student would be able to recall the names of all of the muscles in the body, but would have no concept of which ones are proximal or distal to each other or of which ones perform which functions.  In this case, mere recall would not be very useful, since names of muscles are meaningless without understanding which ones perform which functions.  Mnemonics could be helpful in remembering information about certain muscle groups, but it would not be practical to attempt to use them further.

Mnemonics also would not be very useful in a math course, since math students must understand how to arrive at correct answers in many different mathematical situations rather than just recalling information.

In addition, while many students are auditory or visual learners, some students are kinesthetic learners who would not necessarily benefit from any kind of mnemonic, since mnemonics are intangible.

I feel mnemonics can be used reasonably well by some students for factual recall, but they do not lead to the deeper understanding necessary for true comprehension.

Dear all, I have personally benefited much from mnemonics especially first letter mnemonics and music mnemonics.  Because I understood that they are helpful for recall.  As a student, I had labored to understand the info.  I used mnemonics to help me recall most biochemical pathways, but that did not mean that I could avoid lots of time learning to get real understanding of the knowledge.  Now I honestly tell my students the advantages and limitations of mnemonics.  There is no way that mnemonics can lead to deeper understanding.  (Remember dear friends, that on Bloom's taxonomy, UNDERSTANDING is above remembering.)